The Guardians or The Unforgivable Fanfic
by Lotten
Summary: Marauder!fic/WITCH-crossover. Five very different boys are forced to don wings to try to save the world and hopefully also themselves , using magic that they are less than apt at controlling and what unity they can summon whenever they are not squabbling
1. Departures and arrivals

**A/N:** I will probably never be forgiven for this, but here goes. The bad crossover of doom. This is what happens when you mate marauder fics with W.I.T.C.H. in an overworked and tired mind. I have never read even one W.I.T.C.H. magazine, and it is possible I never will. So, this will be loosely based on the TV series. The operative word in that sentence is LOOSELY. I'm not going to attack the whole concept of the TV series, because it WORKS for TV. But it doesn't in literature, okay? So I will use the basic story and make up most of the filling, if you get what I mean. Besides, I will not let the marauders sound and/or act like very American 13-year-old girls, because they aren't. So there.

Oh, and I didn't give them the powers of the girl they resemble as much as the element that seemed to suit them.

Oh, and there will be swearing. Also, to avoid flames and snarking, I will tell you right now that there will be slash. It makes me angry just to have to warn about this, but flames would make me **A LOT** angrier, so…

Oh, and also, I'm going to add some completely made-up stuff when I feel like it. Just because.

Oh, and I've tried to keep some of the general feel of the series, and for this, I ask your forgiveness.

* * *

**Chapter One**

**Departures and arrivals**

* * *

"This…is…not…fair…"

Peter crammed the rest of his textbooks into his bag, realising just a moment after that he had probably squashed his lunch flat. He groaned, but there was no time to do anything about it, so he grabbed the slightly dripping bag and sprinted towards the door…

…and sneezed.

He stopped, shocked, and looked around at his room. It didn't look much like his room anymore, though. It didn't look much like anything, except maybe a dump. Where had that freaky blast of wind come from? Must be a draught somewhere…?

He was jolted back into action when he suddenly realised that he wasn't getting less late for school by standing there. Muttering words that Sirius would be surprised he knew and his father would ground him for, he crashed down the stairs, wondering how come this always seemed to happen to him. It really _wasn't_ fair. He had to try so hard in school to be able to even pass – he tried just as hard as Remus, who got A's at everything, and much harder than James and Sirius, who despite not working at all still managed to scrape quite good grades. And they were _never_ this late, either, even though Peter knew for sure that he was the only one that set his alarm at-

Hey, wait a minute… His alarm clock! Confusion hit him so hard that he actually stopped in his tracks. He had put his alarm clock on the windowsill this evening so that he'd be sure that he'd make it to the first day of the term. There was _no way_ he could've turned it off in his sleep.

"Granny Minnie? Are you awake?"

"In here…" She was standing in front of her old armoire, staring at something inside, and rather hastily shut the doors when he entered the room.

"Do you know if anyone killed my alarm clock while I was asleep?"

"What? Oh, no, I don't think so." She seemed a bit distracted, but not distracted enough not to suddenly fix him with a hawk-eyed stare. "Aren't you a bit late?"

He sighed. "Yes, I am. I'll be going shall I?" Remembering something, he stopped in the door and turned around, blushing slightly. "Oh, and my room is a bit untidy. I'll clean it when I get home from school, promise."

"Hmm?" She looked up, he hand once more clutching the handle to the armoire door. "Oh, yes. Fine. Certainly. Oh, that's right, I have a… a surprise for you. Why don't you bring over your friends after school?"

Peter narrowed his eyes. "This is not going to be something embarrassing, is it?"

"What? Embarrassing?" She looked honestly surprised. "What kind of embarrassing thing would that be?"

"Something like when you tried to teach us to dance when we were twelve?"

"What's embarrassing about that is that I've got a grandson with two left feet. But no, nothing like that. Something… rather exciting." She gave Peter a strange, sharp look, and suddenly he felt strangely… detached, as if he was floating outside his body.

"Right…" he heard his voice say, and was rather pleased to notice how sceptical he sounded. "I can bring that new guy that our teacher talked about at the end of last term."

"You do that," said his grandmother, while Peter wondered despairingly what had possessed him to make such a suggestion. "Now, my advice is to hurry up."

"Oh… yes, of course…"

When he stepped outside he heard something break underneath his foot, and looked down upon the sad remains of his alarm clock. Well, that proved it. There was definitely a draught in his room.

* * *

Someone else was running out of time at that exact moment, but in her case there was more at stake than detention. Soon the delivery gates through which she had snuck in would close, and then she had no idea how to get out of the Prince's castle, and that meant she'd have no escape route if she was discovered by the guards. But she still hadn't found the gunpowder she was looking for.

Ducking behind some crates to avoid the patrols, Lily studied the map her informant had given her again. It was crudely drawn, and scribbled with coal on the inside of a flour bag, for her informant was never left alone for very long. But if she read it right, the door was supposed to somewhere here. Maybe it was hidden…? Of course! There was a large set of shelves covering one of the walls just a little way away, that had to be it. And then, there had to be a switch, because she couldn't imagine that the Snakelord was patient enough to wait for that shelf to be moved every time he came to inspect. But where?

"If I was a switch, where would I hide? Or rather, if I was a snakeman with scales for brains, where would I hide the switch? Oh my, the oldest trick in the book…" She pulled at one of the torches, and there was a loud _cthunk!_ from somewhere inside the wall, before heavy bolts shot out from the wall and forced the a section of the shelves to reluctantly swing forward on screeching, rusty hinges. Lily grimaced wildly at the sound and quickly slipped inside, hoping against hope that the guards on patrol hadn't heard.

After a frantic search she realised that getting the door closed from the inside was apparently not an option; the only switch was the one outside. She cursed herself for not letting Andromeda come with her when she asked; having an extra pair of hands outside that gate would've been really useful. But there was nothing to be done about it now. She would just have to work _very_ fast.

When Andy had told her to look for crates with the royal seal on them, she had apparently left out one tiny problem; there was hardly anything _but_ crates in the storeroom, and it was so dark that looking for the pale grey royal seal was a right bitch. And lighting a match to find crates full of gunpowder didn't seem like such a good idea. Lily wasn't that good with languages, but she could swear fluently in all the eleven tongues of Meridian, and she applied that knowledge right now.

Eventually, after a nerve-wrecking search during which her heart pounded so loudly in her ears that she was sure she wouldn't hear the guards coming, she finally found the crates. They were small and square and surprisingly heavy, and were stacked neatly on top of each other at the very back of the room. At least something was working for her advantage; there were shelves obscuring her from every direction, and there was a window rather close by. Sure, it was a miserably narrow slit close to the ceiling, but the crates would easily get through. She could probably squeeze in too if it came to that.

Moving the crates to the window and then hauling them into the moat from there was hard work, but she could already see the faint movement in the unnatural, thick vegetation surrounding the castle. Soon dark shadows detached themselves and started to retrieve the floating crates. Lily smiled despite her aching limbs; the gunpowder would now aid the rebels instead of their oppressors.

There was of course a plan. She was to take twenty crates, one for each one of them, and then get scarce. Lily knew about plans, in theory. In practice, not so much. She figured that each rebel out there could carry at least three crates each and still be mobile, and even when they couldn't carry any more crates they could still sabotage the gunpowder by pouring it into the river. Thus, so long as no one was around, she saw no reason to stop at twenty. Sure, Andy would probably be after her hide for it later, but this was now, and the less gunpowder Prince Lucius and the Snakelord had at their disposal, the better.

She had managed to clear forty-five crates when she could hear a muffled exclamation from the door, followed by a smattering of called orders and requests for backup. She swore vehemently under her breath, throwing a disappointed look at the pile of crates still left. She had barely managed to make a dent in the supply. What good would forty-five crates do the rebels if the enemy had hundreds upon hundreds. Unless…

It took a candle, a match and thirty precious seconds to conclude her work there, by which time guards were already appearing. They stopped at the sight of her, staring at what from their point of view was a frail young woman, barely more than a child; she had always been short and slight and had always seen this as an asset, and it was once more proved now as it gave her time to swing herself up to the window, wave cheerfully at them, and step out into thin air.

Only then did she realise that an eighty-foot drop into water was rather nastier than it at first had appeared. For one thing, hitting the water was like hitting a solid wall. She wondered briefly if that meant she wouldn't sink before unconsciousness took her.

* * *

"I am not pleased, Tom. Not at all." Prince Lucius was pacing his study, white with rage. The black-haired young man kneeling before him was watching him with impassive red eyes. If he was frightened – and few people were unaffected by the Prince's rage – he was very good at hiding it.

"I am sorry, my prince. Apparently the rebels planted some kind of trap. Probably just an ordinary candle leaned to fall into an open crate once it had burned to a certain level. Simple, but very effective. Our whole stock of gunpowder has been depleted, and large parts of the contents of storeroom five were destroyed in the explosion and following fire. Thankfully, however, there were no damages to the castle. The magic on the walls still holds strong."

The prince snorted sharply in irritation and disgust. "Of course it does. How many did we lose?"

"Guards, sir?" There was a hint of a nonchalant sneer on the young man's face now. "Since the explosion was limited to the storeroom, we only lost the first patrol to enter, and since we've searched all bodies found, and all evidence points at that they failed to apprehend the trespasser… Well, they would have been sentenced to death anyway. Of course, we did lose a dozen or so of the castle servants in the fire when we attempted to rescue as much as we could that hadn't already been destroyed…"

The prince waved a pale hand to silence him. "Yes, yes, that is of little matter. Servants can be replaced. So can guards, but that takes more time. How about the gunpowder? How about everything that was lost in the fire?"

"We have sent despatches for new supplies already."

"Good." The prince stopped pacing, sinking down to his knees in front of Tom and grabbing both his hands in his, squeezing them so hard that his knuckles went white. The young man winced but said nothing. He met the prince's burning stare with unblinking calm. In fact, he had not blinked at all since he came there, and judging from the fact that he had no eyelids, it seemed unlikely that he was going to start.

"This has been happening more frequently, Tom," the Prince hissed, leaning forward. Tom didn't back away. "Suddenly they are impertinent. Suddenly they do not fear us. And I've heard stories of a new leader, a leader they call the Tiger Lily. It is likely that it was she that led this attack; maybe she even was the one to infiltrate the castle. And she's here, I want _you_ to find her. Do I make myself clear? They can't have gotten far, but I don't trust mere guards on this mission. _You_ have to find her and bring her to me. The sooner we can have her publicly executed, the better. Let us remind them that the privilege of living peacefully in Meridian can be withdrawn at any moment. And then, the only thing that remains is resting peacefully here in death."

"Yes, my prince." A cold, nasty smile parted Tom's lips, revealing teeth that elongated into fangs as the prince watched them. Tom's irises spread to blot out the white in his eyes, and the pupils narrowed into a snakelike resemblance at the same time as his hair seemed to recede back into his skull, revealing white scales. As the prince let go of his hands and stood up, Tom's whole body was already covered in the same white scales, broken by a jagged slash of black following his spine. The long, powerful body of an enormous snake had replaced his from the waist and downward.

"You are so much more beautiful in your true form," the Prince remarked casually, his eyes now burning with a different flame, and the Snakelord smiled a lipless smile at him.

"Thank you, my Prince," he hissed, a cloven tongue flecking out to taste the air at the end of the last, drawn-out consonant.

* * *

It had been a shitty morning.

His mother had been called to an emergency meeting at work at 6 AM and had sped off into the morning gloom with Severus watching from the window. He had to walk to school, and the really great part, aside from the horrible weather, was that he wasn't entirely sure of his way there. After wandering around aimlessly – watching the digits on his clock count down to School start, to Late, and then to Very Late – he finally found it. A flat, yellowish building that reminded him more of some kind of an industrial warehouse than a school. It was half past, and his first class would end in a quarter of an hour. Sighing and dragging his feet behind him, Severus went without much hope to find someone who could direct him to classroom 314 B.

When he finally arrived people were already streaming out of the open door. Most of them walked past him without so much as looking at him, and a ridiculously pretty young man almost walked right into him.

"Wha- Uh, sorry," his eyes flickered briefly to Severus and then once more turned back to another boy as he continued on his way. "I'm telling you, James, that bloody flame fucking _jumped _at me…"

Severus stood frozen as his new classmates filtered past, waiting for the corridor to get empty so that he could sneak into the classroom and check if the teacher was still there. After a couple of minutes or so the din of adolescent voices faded, and he took a tentative step toward the door.

"Uhm…"

Severus spun around, surprised. A short, plump boy was standing by a row of brightly pink lockers, looking embarrassed and confused. A bit down the corridor another boy waited; a skinny, tall fellow with brown hair.

"What?" It came out a lot more hostile than Severus had intended it, and he flinched a bit at the sound of his own voice. What was his bloody damage? Was he somehow _destined_ to scare people away?

The short boy also flinched and blushed. "I… uh, that is we… that is, me and my friends… we thought that maybe… well, perhaps, if you wanted to… you could come and hang with us after school? Seeing as you're new and all, I mean." As Severus didn't answer his blush deepened and he began to back away. "I mean, if you don't want to come then that's cool with us, I just thought… I'd… ask…"

"I…" Severus blurted out, mostly to stop the guy from leaving before he'd even managed to articulate some kind of an answer. There really seemed to be no reason why not, he concluded. It was, of course, going to be a complete and utter failure, and they'd realise soon enough that he was absolutely unsuitable as friend material, but not even trying was pathetic even by his standards. He sighed. "Fine then. I suppose I'll come."

The boy's face showed such a huge amount of relief that it was almost comical. "Oh. Great! You… Your name is Severus, right?"

"Yes." There was an awkward silence before Severus remembered that he should be saying something. "And you are?"

"Peter. Peter Pettigrew. Uh, you should probably speak to Mr Slughorn. He's still in there." He indicated at the classroom door. "Then we have class one floor down, 208 A. Uhm… see you then, I suppose." He waved awkwardly and then fled down the corridor with his friend. And Severus was left to ponder the depressing fact that he was already screwing up everything that he possibly could, before steeling himself and knocking on the classroom door.

This new school was clearly going to be hell.

* * *

**A/N: **...is anyone still alive?

Next up: **Chapter Two, Magic and... _make-up_?!**


	2. Magic and make up

**

* * *

**

Chapter Two

**Magic and… **_**make-up?**_

* * *

"Lily!"

A hand slapped her forcefully over the face, making her head ring with pain. Why was she in pain? Oh _right_, the impact, the water, the leap… the gun powder… the mission… _THE MISSION!_

She opened her eyes and shot into sitting position, and then toppled sideways and threw up as the world did cartwheels around her throbbing head. When she finally looked up through curtains of sopping wet hair, feeling miserable, she was met by Andromeda's wooden glare and another stinging slap; for good measure, Lily supposed.

"You little fool!" the older woman snarled. "You price ass! Do you see now why I tell you to stick to the plan? Your wilfulness almost got you killed!"

"But it didn't," Lily snapped back sulkily, scrabbling in her coat pockets for a leather thong to tie her hair back with. "I managed to destroy their whole supply of gunpowder and..."

Andromeda grabbed her by the chin and forced her to meet her gaze. Steel forced its way into emerald, and Lily had to look away first, feeling her self-satisfaction and defiance shatter. "You know how much they put in store by you, you wretched slattern! It would demoralize every single rebel in this god-forsaken land if word came out that the Tiger Lily was dead. You may be my leader, but since it is obvious that you haven't the faintest idea of the responsibility it entails, it is my duty and my right to tell you that unless you stop acting like a spoilt child with a new toy, you will henceforth be taking all your orders from _me. _Is that clear?"

Lily hung her head, ashamed to have lost so much of her mentor's regard through one single stunt. She often forgot how much the other woman had sacrificed for the sake of the rebels, and her tendency to improvise during the course of her missions was something that regularly called down the disapproval of her mentor, but she had never seen her this angry.

Andromeda had been a captain of the Prince's troops before she fell in love with a rebel prisoner placed in her custody and fled with him into the wilderness outside the Meridian capital. When Lily's father – at that time the leader of the rebels – found out, he risked his own life to find them and smuggle them into the Eternal City, the sprawling labyrinth of caves under the capital where the rebels hid. He welcomed Andromeda into the organization with open arms, and when he and Andromeda's husband were lost, supposedly dead, during a mission, leaving Lily in charge of the band of rebels, Andromeda had sworn to protect and guide her.

"I'm sorry, Andy," she said reluctantly, sighing deeply as Andromeda regarded her with cold scepticism. "Look, I really am. But we put so much work into getting into the castle, and we're not even sure if we'll manage that again... I just wanted to make sure it counted for something."

Andromeda shook her head, but the worst of her anger had gone from her eyes. "Be that as it may, it was still irresponsible. But we'll have to leave that for later. We can't stay here, as I'm sure you understand. The place is swarming with guards, and I think that the Snakelord is with them."  
Only then did Lily take in where they were. They appeared to be hiding in a thick patch of greenery in the unnatural forest of gigantic thorny vines that surrounded the castle. She could hear the distant calls of guards all around her, but not even they knew every part of the accursed forest, and wandered blindly in their search of the rebels. Lily guessed that Andy had told the others to get scarce, and had stayed behind by herself to watch over their unconscious leader, which meant that the only people they had to worry about getting out of there were themselves. Easy.

And sure enough, they managed to slip past the patrols without too much fuss. Lily was aching all over and was a bit clumsy, which slowed them down a bit, but they still would've managed to get out of there without raising the alarm if luck had stayed by their side just a little bit longer. As it was, at the very edge of the forest, from whence they could slip into wilderness and be lost to the soldiers, they managed to stumble right into a lone soldier taking a leak. Before Andy managed to slit his throat he had yelled bloody murder, and suddenly something was crashing through the thick vegetation, something that bore an uncomfortable resemblance to...

"The Snakelord! RUN!" Andy grabbed Lily and hauled her forcefully along, and even though blood was beating like drums in her hears, Lily still heard the panic in her voice, saw how the other woman's face had turned a ghostly white. As her father would have said, they were knee-deep in shit now.

* * *

"Why the hell did you ask him to come? Does he _look_ like he'll be much fun?" James shot Severus, walking a few steps behind them, a sceptical glance. Peter had to admit he had a point. The look on the new boy's face could be described as somewhere between 'apathetic' and 'sullen disinterest'. But what could he do? He had already told Aunt Minnie that he would bring him and besides, Peter knew how much it sucked to be new and know nobody, so he supposed he ought to give the guy a chance.

"Don't whisper about him like that," he shot back. "Besides, I bet he's just shy. You know I was."

"Yeah, only you didn't glare like that."

"I can glare like that now if it helps?"

James rolled his eyes and shrugged. "Well, alright. I suppose it can't hurt."

"Funny, you sound like you're hurting a great deal, the way you're moaning," Remus said quietly, giving James an amused glance over his shoulder. Then he smartly stepped around the two shorter boys and took place beside Severus, starting to interrogate him on his old school. Sirius, who up till then had walked beside Remus, looked a bit put off but decided not to comment and instead fell into pace with James and Peter.

Peter's grandmother was waiting for them with hot chocolate and crumpets, and then she discreetly faded into a generic sort of bustling around the kitchen. But Peter got the feeling that she was actually watching them all the time, as if she was waiting for something else than awkward conversation to happen. She seemed especially interested in Severus, for every time he moved her head swivelled around, and for a few moments her gaze would not leave him. Finally, after the crumpets had run out along with the topic they had been pursuing, and silence fell for a moment over the kitchen, she approached the table.

"You boys want some more?" she asked, apparently trying to sound cheerful and not managing very well. Her normally stony face seemed to have difficulties bending into a smile. The boys shook their heads and politely declined, and she nodded and lifted the tray. As she did so, something slipped out of her hand and landed with a faint clatter on the floor next to where Severus sat.

"Here, you dropped this," he mumbled, bending forward to pick whatever it was up. Then out of nowhere came a blinding flash of pink light, and when they had all blinked the black spots from their vision, Severus was staring at a strange-looking necklace dangling from his fingers, looking rather silly.

"I knew it." Peter's grandmother was looking at the five of them, and Severus in particular, with definite smugness. "Of course it has never happened before, as far as I am aware, but there is no reason why it shouldn't." The last part appeared to be for the benefit of herself, or perhaps someone who wasn't even there.

"Do you want this back?" Severus demanded, looking at her as if she had gone stark raving mad.

"Of course not, you silly boy," she said briskly. "It is yours now, after all."  
"Uhm, thanks, but really, no thanks," Severus said, looking at the jewel with badly hidden scorn. It really was very pink.

"You don't have a choice, boy," she replied sternly. "You're a Guardian now."

"What? Guardian of what? What's this all about? Is this some kind of a joke?" Severus was looking at Peter, demanding an explanation for his grandmother's behaviour, but Peter was just as bewildered.

"Granny? What are you on about?" he wondered plaintively, in a voice that said 'why are you embarrassing me in front of my friends?'.

"What I am 'on about', Peter, is that you have all been chosen to do something very special. You see, the story goes like this..." She made a motion with her hand and suddenly all background noises seemed to die away, as if they were now trapped in a bubble. The room seemed to grow darker, the shadows twisting into strange shapes. Sirius, Peter and James opened their mouths to speak, but Minerva McGonagall gave them a look so fierce that they all suddenly found themselves speechless. "There is another world called Meridian," she continued, "which lies only a shadow's width away from our own. For thousands of years, its history has been bloody and turbulent, as the eleven provinces made war upon one another." As she spoke, ghostly pictures appeared in the air, showing armies clashing and peasants starving; dying soldiers and mourning mothers. The boys watched in horrified fascination, too overwhelmed to disbelieve what they saw. "But fifteen years ago, the citizens of Meridian knew hope. A prophesy was made, that if the second son born to the royal family was to rule, the land would know peace and prosperity again. Soon thereafter, the queen gave birth to a son. They called him Regulus, 'the little king'." A woman holding an infant in her arms appeared in a window, and the crowd below cheered. Old ladies and men alike cried without shame. "But there was one who did not rejoice. The older prince, Lucius, was furious at being bereft of the throne which he saw as his by right. And through violence and treachery, he overthrew his parents and seized power over Meridian." A pale-faced youth with cold eyes stood over the woman from the last vision, a long dagger dripping blood in his hand. Behind him towered a monstrous creature, like the perverted child of a man and a snake. "Lucius sought to kill his younger brother, but Regulus' nursemaid fled with the boy, bringing him to earth through a rift in the worlds, a portal. Here she found a family where the parents resembled members of the royal family and left the child on their doorstep, using magic to make sure that they would keep him. Then she returned to Meridian with word of what she had done. And once more, the people knew hope, and out of that hope was borne a force of resistance against Lucius; out of that hope, the Rebels were born." They saw faces of men and women, all with the same hard look in her eyes; they were being led by a beautiful young woman who laughed as she fought. Then the images faded away.

"And where do you stand in all of this?" Peter's grandmother swept her eyes over the stunned boys. "Since anyone can remember, there have been Guardians. Guardians are people who watch the boundaries between two worlds; warriors serving to protect the people of both. Their most important duty is to close the portals between two worlds whenever they open. And now, with Lucius ruling Meridian and seeking power over more worlds than one, it is more important than ever. Also, since you now are Guardians over Meridian and Earth, it will be your duty to try to find Regulus before Lucius does." As she said these words, the sounds from the street outside gradually came back, and once more the room looked ordinary and bright.

At length, James said, "This is impossible. It's... it's completely illogical."

"You just saw visions floating in the air, and you are trying to bring logic into this? Should I be impressed or amused?" Minnie raised her eyebrows and James blushed.

"But why should we...? What makes you think that we should be this... this thing... Guardians or whatever?" Sirius demanded.

"Because Peter is my grandson," the old woman replied. "It is always inherited through one of the old Guardians, such as myself, and since I was the only one of us to have children, we knew that I would be the one to find the new Guardians."

"_You_ were a Guardian?" Peter blurted out, staring at his grandmother.

"Well, yes. In fact, the Guardians have always been, well, female up until now. But my daughter never showed any signs of power, and she only had a son: You. So I have to suppose that is why you are all boys."

"But we're no warriors, Mrs McGonagall," Remus pointed out respectfully.

"At least one of you has a sensible question. But the Guardians are not warriors in the traditional sense; that would not be enough. The Guardians fight using magic."

A long silence followed her words, and then Remus cleared his throat. "Well, Mrs McGonagall, we don't know how to use magic either."

"Not yet, you don't. But you will learn. I would guess that you, Remus, will evolve a power over the element earth. Peter, you have already displayed power over air, as your room bears witness of. Sirius, you remind me of Renée, so my guess would be that you will soon learn to control fire. And that leaves you, James, with water."

"And that leaves me free to go home, I suppose," Severus said, standing up. "Because whatever this is, I don't want any part of it, and obviously this only concerns the four of you, so..."

"_Sit._" Minerva's eyes flashed. Severus sighed, sitting down. "You are the most important one of all. Your power is that of the heart. Now, the power of the heart cannot burn down a building or cause an earthquake, but the heart is the element that binds all the other elements together. In other words, only you can release the full potential of the power of the Guardians, and to you is given the power to close the portals when they open. And that is why you shall carry the Heart of Kandrakar." She gestured at the pendant that Severus still had clutched in his hand. Almost as if it had been listening, the Heart started pulsing gently, emitting a soft pink radiance. Severus almost dropped it in shock.

"Well, that settles it," Minnie said, as if that was all the consent she needed. "I suggest you get together tomorrow somewhere where you won't be seen, and _you_," she fixed Severus with a steely gaze, "hold the Heart aloft and activate it through the words, 'Guardians unite'. If this is just the ramblings of a senile old lady," she gave them all an amused look over the top of her glasses, "then nothing worse will happen than you looking mildly silly. And if it isn't... well, then you've got some things to consider, don't you? Now, are you sure you don't want more chocolate?"

* * *

"I can't believe we went here. I mean, the lady is obviously off her nut-"

"Hey! Fuck off!"

"Sorry Peter, but what are we supposed to think? I mean..." Words failed Sirius, and he just gesticulated in frustration at the gloomy, dripping forest around him.

Severus was staring at the pendant dangling from his fingers. "Well, if she's crazy then we are too."

There was nothing to answer to that. What they had seen _could_ be a hallucination, of course, but on the other hand, what business did the five of them have, having the _exact same_ hallucination? It made no sense.

"Well, should we get this over with, then?" James suggested, brushing a spider away from his jeans. "I mean, at least Peter's grandmother was right about that; we won't lose anything by trying."

"Except if she's right," Remus pointed out with his most sensible tone of voice. "Then we'll be forced to battle a prince and, presumably, his whole army together with a rag-tag rebel force. That's a bit of a loss in my book."

"Well, yes," Sirius conceded, "but wouldn't it be sort of... wrong of us not to try?"

"He's right," Peter chimed in thankfully. "I mean, if we could help people..." His words faltered into silence, and as they watched each other in the second-hand light from the bleak autumn sky, they were all thinking the same thing: Who in this world – or any world – would _want_ to be saved by them?

"Very well then," Severus finally said, shrugging "Here goes, I suppose." He lifted the Heart of Kandrakar into the air, glaring at it as if that would make it look less silly. "Guardians unite."

After that things became a little confused. Remus had the impression of everything becoming very bright, all swirling colours and flashing lights, and the air got warm and almost... liquid, enveloping him, and as he opened his mouth in shock, inhaling against his will, the warmth spread to his body and he felt something inside him... shifting. And then it was gone, and he was on his hands and knees on the ground, panting, trying to rid his lungs of the feeling that they were filled with warm glue.

And then he heard James saying, "What the _hell _are we wearing?"

Remus looked up, confused, and then, for a long – very long – moment, did nothing but stare. At James. Wearing a long, flowing skirt and showing more of his stomach than Remus had ever felt the need to see. And everyone else. In the same kind of feminine, figure-hugging, purple-and-green clothes, topped up with what was obviously large amounts of make-up. And himself. In a pink mini-skirt.

Sitting back on the cold, moist ground, he covered his face with his hands. "Please tell me we are not going to fight bad guys wearing _this_!"

* * *

A/N: Oh, _of course_ I was going to use the horrible costumes! I mean, what would be the point of this fic if I didn't get to turn them into cross-dressing giant bugs?! Plus, I'm sure there's at least one warped fangirl out there who would consider this TEH HOTNESS! Try to get into that mindset while you wait for the next part ;D


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